As the school shooting crisis in America is still an ongoing problem — as of Jan. 24 there were three across the country — schools must prepare for the worst. 

While schools practice lock down practices with the doors locked and the light off, it isn’t enough. Those drills are for us, but what about the police? How do they practice?

On Dec. 21 select students were asked to help participate in an active shooting drill for the police.

“We were posing as students in a classroom as if we were in a beak in or like a school shooter or someone,” sophomore Maggie Butler said. “Basically they would position us and they would like, once they took down the shooter they would give us instructions on what to do to see if they knew what to do.”

Although this happening in real life would be terrifying, the majority of the participants were not severely affected by taking part in the drill. 

“You are going to be a little freaked out. But no, it was fun because we knew that all the police were there and if they accidentally shot us they’re going to be in big trouble,” Butler said. “It was intense but it was fun and I don’t think that it really affected anyone’s metal health that much.”

Butler’s mom, however, was nervous about what her child went though during the training. 

“She asked me a lot of questions she was like ‘are you OK? I’ve gone through that training before with them, are you okay? I know that’s scary.’ And I’m like, ‘mom, it’s fine. It was fun,’” Butler said.

Practicing these things are necessary for the safety of our students, our staff, and everyone in the building. 

“I think it’s good that we have the drills. I think it’s like a little unsetlling that they need to have the drills since school shooting is a threat,” Butler said. “It’s fun going into that drill thinking about how they need to be trained for this type of stuff because it feels like we really shouldn’t have to have these drills.”